The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: And Ohter Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebookby Bruce D. Perry , M. D., Ph. D., and Maia Szalavitz, published by Basic Books, 2006ISBN # 978-0-465-05652-1

My favorite quote from the book:

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One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my work is the importance of simply taking the time, before doing anything else, to pay attention and listen. Because of the mirroring neurobiology

of our brains, the best ways to help someone else become calm and centered is to calm and center ourselves first--and then just pay attention.

When you approach a child from this perspective, the response you get is far different from when you simply assume you know what is going on and how to fix it. ......the more you try to see

the world from the child's point of view and the safer you make him feel, the better his behavior is likey to be and the more likely you are to find ways of further improving it.

(pages 244-245)

My favorite chapter in the book was one entitled The Kindness of Children in which a young boy's classmates were given a unique opportunity to see things from a different perspective and they responded with natural goodness and compassion. Very sweet story...makes me wish all school environments could be so nurturing for our children.

As part of the introduction, it is stated that:

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In order to appreciate how children heal, we need to understand how they learn to love, how they cope with challenge, how stress affects them. And by recognizing the destructive

impact that violence and threat can have on the capacity to love and work, we can come to better understand ourselves and to nurture the people in our lives, especially the children.

I just read this book. I was amazed at how helpful it was to understand how trauma impacts our children. there are numerous stories from actual children Dr. Perry worked with and how he helped them. He never used the same approach, except that every time he did gather all available information and attempted to see the world the way the child saw it. It works well when done consistently.

I know that the more I learn about my son's past traumas the better it helps me to learn how to handle him. he has admitted and discussed most of them but the damage was done so now I need to figure out how to parent him as the 12 year old who functions as a much younger child, like 6.

The book is very good and insightful. there may be ways for each of us to help our kids from Dr. Perry's examples.

Sherrie

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"Sometimes the clearest evidence that God has not deserted you is not that you are successfully past your trials, but that you are still on your feet in the midst of it." Dale Ralph Davis

I just finished this book. It was insightful and helpful. Though it did not specifically deal with RAD, it did discuss how trauma effects the brain. Understanding how to approach things with DDRAD is hard sometimes. In many ways she is wise beyond her years and many others she is much younger than her chronological age. This helped explain that based on when trauma occurred it impacts different regions of the brain.

I am glad you found the book helpful. It made me realize that most of what our kids do isn't because they are really trying to be jerks. I had my son's brain mapped and except for two areas he was at the level of most toddlers in every aspect. It means that daily I tell him to act his age. He is 13 but he acts like he is 5 most days.

Just like all of you my son never asked to be raised by inept, cruel and useless parents. he didn't ask for a system that caused him more trauma by moving him 19 times in just 5 short years.

But, he deserves my best and he ahs made amazing progress. There is much to be done yet but he is starting to be a child, even if he is very immature emotionally and socially. Physically, his body is 13. Someday I pray the rest of him catches up to his real age.

Sherrie

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"Sometimes the clearest evidence that God has not deserted you is not that you are successfully past your trials, but that you are still on your feet in the midst of it." Dale Ralph Davis

My daughter also picks and chooses. She will present to the outside world as very mature and wonderful to be around etc. Once the "New" wears off and she has deeper interaction, the facade falls and she is more like she is at home. That used to be the most frustrating part to me. The people who love and/or care about her the most are the ones that feel her wrath. I seen her change how she interacts with people over time- coaches, therapist. other family members. It is like once they can see through the facade, she does not try to maintain it. I think it is a protective measure. If people see her and her flaws then she has to not care about them so has no chance of being hurt by them. If you are a stranger or someone that stays in that superficial space with then she doesn't risk anything by being nice to you. Real relationships are messy and not always easy or endless fun. If you know her more, being nice and loving is a risk for her. I don't know if that makes sense or even how it totally ties into the book. Maybe that part of the emotional brain does not fire correctly.

You are correct. She is afraid and her fears keep her from letting others love her because they always have hurt her, as a tiny child. It has taken years to help m y son not fear so much. He is much closer to normal now but he still tests me to make sure I won't abandon him.

His remarkable changes occurred when the trauma was treated at residential. His current therapist is going to start using sand therapy to hopefully get my son to shed the remaining trauma that makes him lie always and still act disrespectfully to me. The sand therapy is helpful because the child is making pictures in the sand with objects that represent things. Each section of the sand tray represents something too. It's trauma therapy and I hope it unlocks the last of my son's hidden traumas.

I know your DD attends counseling but maybe it needs to focus more on her trauma before she is ready top do any attachment. It appears from what I have read and know of the brain that until the trauma is healed or addressed the child cannot form relationships. that is what had to happen with my son so maybe it is accurate for most people.

I have read many books on brain trauma and it's amazing how our brains work or get damaged and how that impacts everything else. My son is 13 but because of all of his trauma he still functions as a toddler in many areas.

Sherrie

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"Sometimes the clearest evidence that God has not deserted you is not that you are successfully past your trials, but that you are still on your feet in the midst of it." Dale Ralph Davis